


Fear of a Leader

by marysoljames



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fear, Leadership, Other, season 2 finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 21:17:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11745357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marysoljames/pseuds/marysoljames
Summary: A small audio clip was found years after the defeat of Zarkon. It belonged to the paladin named Keith, this was a small entry in his audio diary. It tell the world the biggest fear he'd ever had





	Fear of a Leader

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished watching season 2 of Voltron Force and I couldn't watch season 3 until I wrote this. Mostly because I like to take a day break in order to recuperate after a season finale of any show, but also to show how my brain travels after investing so much myself to a story and having something dramatic happen to a character I really connect to. I get in their heads and I try to feel how they do and guess what might happen next. Please enjoy and sorry it's a bit crap but I wrote this in less than an hour.

I always thought that the day we defeated Zarcon would be filled with joy and hope. We would all charge to the Castle and celebrate, cheering and high fiving one another and Lance somehow getting a kiss from Allura, after achieving a goal that had taken centuries to achieve, but the joy never came.  
I was the first to notice that’s Shiro’s lion wasn’t working after we were forced out of Voltron from the aftershock of our attack. I felt my heart skip a beat when I saw the Black Lion just floating in space aimlessly. Once we brought Black to the Castle there was one thing running through my mind, don’t be dead. I ran as fast as I could and I was the first to get inside the Black lion and discover that Shiro was gone. Not that he was dead within the lion, he was just gone, vanished like he was never there. I felt the world fall out from under me in that moment and the echo of words that Shiro had spoken to me the day he and I crashed into that barren planet only days before,  
_If anything happens to me, I want you to lead Voltron Keith. ___  
I never told the rest of the team what happened on the planet, they just know that Shiro was hurt and that I saved him by somehow using the Black Lion. But they don’t need to know. If they knew Shiro wanted me to be the new leader of Voltron, they would thrust the position onto me with no problem, forgetting about Shiro and everything he was to the team.  
After leaving the cabin of the Black Lion everyone was silent. No one knew what to do or say so we all just… we didn’t do anything. We just stood there and after awhile I left. I couldn’t handle the pressure I was feeling from the Black Lion, the way it eyed me, almost begging me to tell the team Shiro’s wish. I didn’t make it seem like anything was wrong when I left, I just simply walked out, but once the team was out of sight, I ran. I didn’t really have a destination in mind but I just kept running. No one came after me and no one looked for me and the feeling of loneliness took over my body. As I ran through the corridors of the Castle, tears ran down my face as I thought of the man that I considered to be my older brother, the closest thing I ever had to a real family. That night was the first night that I had cried in years.  
I don’t remember going to my room, but I know that I somehow ended up there. I screamed into my pillow and paced the room. I punched the walls and threw the covers from the bed. I was angry. Why would Shiro do this to me? Why did he choose me of all the damn people in this fight to be a leader? He should have know better than anyone I wasn’t made to be a leader! I’ve only just started learning how to work with a team and now he expects me to lead one?  
His voice came to my head again but it didn’t go away like before. It tortured me throughout the night, I didn’t sleep then and I still haven’t slept since. How could anyone, but somehow the rest of the team did.  
It’s been less than a week since Shiro disappeared and somehow the world has moved on like he never existed. While the others deal with their own affairs like Pidge and her brother or Allura dealing with alliances, I haven’t stopped looking. Everyday I go out and try to find… something. A clue or a sign or just something that might lead us back to Shiro. Something that might explain his vanishing. Anything.  
I still cry at night, when Shiro’s voice finds it’s way past the fog of worry in my head, when I hear him call me a leader. I think of what might happen, everything that could go wrong, everything that could happen to the team, my friends, just everything. Nothing scares me more than that, so when Allura said that we had to find someone to pilot the Black Lion, I began to panic.  
It wasn’t that I didn’t want Voltron to never be formed, but it was the fear of them forgetting Shiro. They were all ready to move on, but I wasn’t. Moving on meant I was a leader and if I was a leader… I could only see downfall in our future. That’s when I broke down.  
I heard myself screaming at the team, but it didn’t feel like it was me. I don’t remember what I said, but I know it hurt them because I still remember their faces when I yelled. I started running and went towards the hangers to Red because I had nowhere else to go but that’s when I felt it, a tug. It wasn’t strong but when I ran through the hanger to get to my lion I felt the tug of the Black Lion’s eyes as I ran past him.  
It was like I was tripped and I fell to my knee right in from of the hall that lead from the Black Lion’s hanger to Red’s. My whole body shook with fear as I took heavy breaths. This wasn’t what I wanted but Shiro damned me to the job the day he spoke the words. The team came after me that time, rushing in and somehow running fast when they saw me on the floor.  
Lance helped me up and for once didn’t say a word, he just stared me in the eyes and asked me everything and nothing all at once with one look. That’s when I knew I had said what Shiro had been begging me to say for days. I looked to the rest of the team to find them going back and forth between gazing from the Black Lion to me.  
Lance pulled my shoulder and had me face him, our eyes locking once again, all he did was give a firm nod. It’s time, it said. I looked back to the lion, it’s gaze beating down on me and I knew he was right. As much as I didn’t want him to be, I knew that it was time.  
I took a deep breath and walked towards the Black Lion, it crouched down and opened it’s mouth for me. I stopped just for a second in front of the lion’s open mouth, but it felt as if an eternity past. I would never be able to replace Shiro, no one could, and I still don’t understand why he picked me and why his lion trusted me, but I silently make a vow in the one second before stepping into the lion.  
_I will never be the leader that Shiro was, but until Shiro returns, I will make sure nothing else happens to my team. _And with my vow made, I steppped into the lion, feeling Shiro besides me as I accepted the role he wanted me to have. To be the leader of Voltron and to protect the people we love.__


End file.
